


this thing we keep

by afterism



Category: Galavant (TV)
Genre: Adventure, Enemies to Lovers, F/F, Magic, Post-Canon, brief appearance by sid, includes the quiet undramatic off-screen break-up of Galavant and Isabella, not sorry for the terrible jokes, sorry for that
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-16
Updated: 2016-12-16
Packaged: 2018-09-09 01:55:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,817
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8871202
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/afterism/pseuds/afterism
Summary: Madalena is locked in a tower. Isabella is her knight in shining armour.Neither are exactly thrilled about this.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Anthusiasm (HalfwayDecentFanfiction)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/HalfwayDecentFanfiction/gifts).



> Huge thanks to my betas, htbthomas & primeideal. All remaining mistakes are my own.
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> Happy Yuletide, Anthusiasm!
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"There is a door, you know," comes a voice from above, and Isabella's foot slips.

She shoves her fingers deeper between the crack in the stones and flattens herself against the tower, her heart pounding. Her fingers have been smarting for the last fifteen feet of being jammed into cold, rough crevices, knuckles aching as she keeps her hands fixed like claws, but she's climbed higher than the trees and is one crumbling brick away from certain death. The tower is slick with mist and unforgiving against her forehead as she closes her eyes, and breathes.

It had been raining all night and she should have waited, of course. She should have brought gloves, even those lovely impractical thin ones that Galavant gave to her on her last birthday, for some scant protection against the stones. She should have _checked who was in the tower before climbing up it_.

Isabella works her foot back into a gap, bracing her stomach and her shoulders and her jaw, and looks up.

"Not that I would have opened it for you, of course," Madalena says, leaning over the edge of the windowsill. It sits a foot proud of the tower; Madalena must be leaning almost flat across it, her arms folded underneath her shoulders, and her sleeves drip down over the edge. Her dress shades closer to old wine than blood.

"Where's the princess?" Isabella demands, as the stones seep cold into her bones.

" _I ate her_ ," Madalena hisses, surging forward with a flash of flat red in her eyes, and then she blinks, and frowns. Her shoulders drop back. "Wait, no, I have no idea what you're talking about. What princess?"

The ground is a pale, distant stretch of grass far below. The long strap of her bag is digging into her shoulder and her stomach and her hip, somehow getting heavier with every inch from the earth, and her heart is still racing as she looks back up at Madalena's maelstrom of an expression.

She considers the edge of the windowsill, and makes a decision.

"The one—" Isabella starts, grimacing as she unhooks one hand and reaches up, everything gone stiff in the pause. "That's supposed—" she continues, baring her teeth as she grips tight on the next stone up, "—to be—" she works her foot into a crevice level with her knee, "—trapped up here," Isabella says, and clenches down on every possible noise her throat wants to make as she hauls herself upwards again.

She glances over, ignoring the frozen burn in her fingertips. Madalena seems further away, despite the sill being nearer.

Isabella reaches up again, loosening enough to move through sheer will, and forces her voice smooth as she quietly climbs. "It's all anyone for miles around here can talk about," she says, even as the mist narrows her world down to her nearly-numb fingertips and this tower and Madalena. A bird calls, somewhere lost in the trees. "Apparently knights keep disappearing into the forest to rescue her and, well, the ones that do return come back raving about _unspeakable_ horrors," Isabella says, as light and casually as she can. The edge of the windowsill catches over her fingertips.

"They can't be very unspeakable if they're raving about them," Madalena says, looking off into the distance with a pleased kind of smile darkening her cheeks, and Isabella surges upwards with opportunity despite the scream of her shoulders.

Madalena looks back just as Isabella is swinging her foot solidly onto the sill, and jerks away. "What are you _doing_?" Madalena hisses, her own hands skittering against the edge of the open window as Isabella holds firm on to the other side and hauls herself in.

It's a big window — there's no other aperture letting light inside the wide, round room, everything at first glance looking a flat sort of dark grey in the weak sunlight. She would have to lunge sword-first at Madalena to get within touching distance. Isabella slips off the stone, and adrenaline holds her upright even as her knees beg to buckle.

She huffs, rolling the solid knot of her shoulders as her hands go to her hips; checking her sword is on one, adjusting the bag slung hard against the other. The air smells like sweet woodsmoke but the fireplace is blackened and lifeless and the most notable thing in there; the featureless stretch of floor is only interrupted by a tall bed close to the wall, a mirror, and a trunk. It feels like the mist has crept in and stolen all the colours.

"Stretching, obviously," Isabella says. Of course she's wondering why Madalena is giving her the chance — she'll just leave it until her hands have remembered how not to resemble bird feet, and can hold a sword. "Do you have any idea how long I've been climbing? I started before the birds had begun their dawn chorus, as the sun was just cresting the horizon!"

Madalena narrows her eyes. "So, like, seven o'clock?"

"Yeah," Isabella says, putting the shrug in her voice since her shoulders are busy. "And I'm not just—"

"No," Madalena cuts through, flicking her hand as she looks to the ceiling. "I mean, what _are you doing_? Here? In _my_ tower?"

"I didn't know it was yours when I started climbing it," Isabella snaps, and then looks away and steps further inside. The floorboards echo solidly under her boots. "If you must know, I'm on a personal mission."

"I've changed my mind, I don't care," Madalena says, the barb of her voice hooking at Isabella's soft bits, but this is the first time anyone's even _asked_ Isabella what the point of the last month of her life has been. The explanation that's been trickling through her thoughts for weeks floods out, unstoppable.

"As a liberated woman who has spent more than enough time locked up in various ways, I feel like it's my duty to help those who need it," Isabella starts, glancing around without really seeing anything as she strolls further in. "And, I mean, I've always believed that a princess should rescue herself or at least be rescued on her own terms, and I realise that's not necessarily possible for all princesses but I'm determined to give them the choice, you know? To be a damsel or not."

She's wandered forwards enough that she has to turn around to see Madalena, silhouetted against the light spilling in; Madalena's holding herself carefully, arms folded as her hands clutch her elbows. There's something deliberate in the angle of her hips.

Madalena just blinks at her for a moment, and then shakes her head in a quick, disbelieving shudder. "Right. Well, I'm not a princess, so you can sod off. There's the window," she says, gesturing quick and careless as she steps away — and then she stops, mid-step, as something drags loud and clinking across the floor.

The silence rings, for a moment. Isabella draws her arm back, finding the pommel of her sword and curving her palm over it, and looks from Madalena's tightly closed eyes to her equally tight fists to the floor. She looks properly.

"Oh, wow," she says, faintly.

The problem with diffused lighting, Isabella finds, is how it makes a mockery of shadows and highlights. The grey lumps on the floor are the same texture as the grey wood. It takes her a moment to realise the lumps are uniform, and attached.

"Say one word and I will pull your kidneys out through your nose," Madalena says. She hasn't moved — one foot is arched up, attached to the floor only by the toe of her shoe and the manacle around her ankle. The chain (because it is, undoubtedly, a chain, now that Isabella is paying attention) leads from under the artfully ragged hem of her dress to trail lazily across the floorboards and hooks onto the large, slightly recessed hoop that sits in the centre of the room, fixed upright on a flat circle of solid stone.

It looks old. Dull. Immovable.

"Madalena," Isabella starts, and digs her teeth into her lip for a considering moment. The thought of just leaving is considered, studied, and thoroughly shut down. "Are you — I mean — did someone lock you up here?"

Madalena opens her eyes, looking to the ceiling like she wants to burn it down as she presses her tongue against her teeth. " _No_ ," she says, eventually, and turns to face her with a swish of her skirts. She folds her arms again, drawing herself tall as her heel clicks down on the wood. "It's part of my training," Madalena says, lifting her chin. "Only someone deep into the dark arts could possibly understand."

"That you've been locked in a tower?" Isabella asks, crossing her arms.

Madalena's pout twitches tighter, and wobbles. "It's for the aesthetic?" she tries.

Isabella raises an eyebrow.

"Oh, _fine_ ," Madalena hisses, uncrossing her arms in a flutter of hands. "He locked me in a tower! How is that any of your business?"

Isabella shrugs, her mouth working through the thought as she glances away. "This is kind of my thing," she says, and looks back just as Madalena is rolling her eyes. "I don't see anyone else rushing to help you."

"I don't _need_ your help. Or anyone else's," Madalena says. She flicks her hair over her shoulder like a sentencing, a vicious slice of her fingers in front of her throat.

"Really?" Isabella says, a challenge in every angle as she steps forward — and stops, when the toe of her boot hits metal. She looks along it, at the chain that must barely be longer than the radius of the room. "How _did_ you end up here, anyway?" she asks, curiosity spilling off her tongue before she can consider it.

Madalena sighs like a storm, rough and boiling and unconstrained. Isabella watches as she looks anywhere but her, glancing around the room like a well-worn tread of half-finished escape plans; and feels a familiar angry heat settle across her skin when Madalena finally looks back to catch her eye and stare her down.

"It turns out people calling themselves Dark Evil Lords aren't very nice people, okay? Apparently my magic is 'unstable'," Madalena sneers, her sleeves fluttering as she gouges finger quotes out of the air. "There's something about the metal around here that, I don't know, stops me from being able to do anything _fun_."

Isabella looks at Madalena's hands, and back to the chain. "You can't do magic," she clarifies, careful and frowning.

"I can still tear your pretty face off with my fingernails if you come any closer," Madalena says, bright as a branding iron. Isabella ignores her, looking around the tower, and out of the corner of her eye she watches the way Madalena's shoulders slump.

"Why haven't you left yet?" Madalena says, petulance plucking at her voice.

Isabella clicks her tongue, curling her fingers around the hilt of her sword.

"So, you don't want my help," Isabella says.

"Obviously," Madalena snaps.

"You don't want me to cut this chain off you?"

"Of course not."

"So, I would, in fact, be defeating the dark forces by using these heavy-duty bolt cutters I brought with me," Isabella says casually, flipping open the flap of her bag and pulling them out by a leather-wrapped handle.

"Wait, hang on —" Madalena says, holding up an elegant finger. She narrows her eyes. "When did you get _clever_?"

Isabella glares back, cold steel in her bones, and holds Madalena's gaze steady as she strides across the room. She's unfaltering until she's a foot away and Madalena is raising her chin like a contest — there's a moment, sense cutting through like a sunbeam, but the fight has worked its way into her bloodstream and so Isabella crouches without looking away, her legging-covered knee hitting the floor under a swirl of her pretend-skirt, the pretence of modesty shattered by how easily she can move her thighs. Her cheeks feel hot, suddenly. Weirdly.

The metal clinks thickly as she grabs a handful of chain, a few links from Madalena's boot, and yanks it closer. Madalena's "Hey!" is lost under the drag of her sole over the floorboards, but she doesn't pull it back — she holds her leg straight and tense and impossibly long even as Isabella lets go of the chain and holds the bolt cutters in both hands, knocking them against the manacle as she lines up the edges.

" _When_ I defeat you and everything you stand for," Isabella starts, baring her teeth as she squeezes the handles together, her elbows pushing wide. "It will be on my terms, and it will be because I'm better than you. _Not_ because some guy realised he couldn't handle you at your worst," she says, almost under her breath, and prises the metal open with a drawn-out grunt that starts in her triceps and lands, ringing, on the floor.

She looks up, catching Madalena's expression when it's just on the edge of shifting from considering to something like a smile, and watches it disappear in the sudden twitch of her mouth.

"Right. Well. Perhaps when I kill everyone you love, I won't force you to watch. Happy?" Madalena says, with a jerk of her chin.

"Ecstatic," Isabella says. She holds her gaze for a moment, feeling the tension in her teeth, and when Madalena purses her lips and looks away Isabella curls her fingers around the broken link, and slips it silently into her palm.

Isabella pushes up on her foot, stepping back, and works the bolt cutters back into her bag just to hide her face — her pulse is still too-loud, her skin flushed and unsettled. "I believe you said something about a door?"

Madalena looks back, flits her gaze over Isabella, and rolls her eyes.

"Oh, fine," Madalena says. "It's not like I want to spend another moment in this plague pit." She sweeps away, hands fisted in her dress skirts to hold them clear of the floor, and strides over to the large trunk that sits against the wall.

Her skirts fall away from her thigh like a dressing-room curtain as she sets her heel against it with a click. Isabella thinks suddenly, wild and unbidden, of the dry heat of the hills outside Hortensia's capital; Madalena's weight on top of her, Isabella digging her fingers into her throat.

With a jerk of her shoulders Madalena shoves her foot forward, a solid stroke of a kick, and Isabella flinches as the lid slides cleanly off and clatters onto the floor with a bang.

"Come along, then," Madalena sighs, and Isabella walks over on light, hesitant feet. A few paces away — out of Madalena's reach — she peers inside the open trunk, and blinks. It's bottomless; stone steps descend out of sight underneath it, curving round the inside of the tower and down into vague darkness.

"How else do you think I got in here?" Madalena asks, to Isabella's silence. "I'm hardly going to climb up the outside like some kind of urchin," Madalena says, with a hitch of an eyebrow, and it settles into a disdainful twist of a pout as she considers Isabella. "After you?"

"I insist," Isabella says, smiling tight and insincere as she grasps the cold hilt of her sword like a ballast.

Madalena's glare is almost fond, a quick flick of heat. She gets over the side of the trunk with a delicate step, skirts slipping over the wood as her boots start clicking down the stones — she leaves without looking back, without a parting shot, leaving Isabella to linger and wonder how long, exactly, she was up here.

"How did you _eat_?" Isabella calls after her, clambering into the trunk. Madalena is a vanishing flutter of fabric, just an echo of her shoes lingering behind her.

"I got sent a crow occasionally," Madalena calls back, faint, and her footsteps don't miss a beat.

 

* * *

 

It sounds like Madalena's tapping stones with her knuckles when Isabella finally spots the ground floor looming closer, a flat level of darkness instead of descending shades. The steps down were speckled with light that crept in through irregular cracks in the walls; they might have been deliberate, occurring just often enough that she was only occasionally blindly sliding her foot down for the next step. Her stomach is still protesting from all the bracing, one hand against the stones as her foot searched for a sudden stop.

"Oh, you're here," Madalena says, somewhere in the gloom. The last gap in the wall was a full turn of the stairs ago, and the dull grey stone sucks up the light greedily without reflecting any onwards. "Get over here, I need your tiny hands."

"What?" Isabella asks, but there's a shift in the darkness and suddenly there's a warm hand around her wrist and she's being yanked forward, Madalena's fingers tight and stable against her surprised pulse.

"What are you _doing_?" Isabella demands, but she's off-balance and Madalena is somehow behind her, pulling at her arm until her palm is up and forward and meeting cold stone.

"Would you just — oh, for God's sake," Madalena says, as Isabella jerks her arm out of Madalena's grip, fingertips scraping down the wall.

"I will not!" Isabella says, half-turning to glare up at her vague guess of Madalena's position — but then Madalena is pressing close, warmth against her shoulder blades and her ribs and the curve of her hips, and Isabella can only blame that fact that she hasn't seen Galavant in over a month for the way her skin sings with the heat, touch-starved and tingling.

It's the only excuse she has for how Madalena moves her arm again without resistance, sliding her fingertips between hers as they skim the wall a little distance above Isabella's shoulder. Her fingers falter into a gap between the stones and her breath hitches as Madalena's grip tightens, pushing her hand forward so it jars suddenly against a thin cable that stings rough and solid against her still-raw skin. She grips it on reflex, Madalena's hand curling around hers.

"Stay," Madalena commands, her mouth close, as her hand slips away and leaves Isabella's knuckles feeling cold.

"I'm not some doll you can move around as you please," Isabella hisses. A ghost of pressure slides around her waist.

"Really?" Madalena says, the arch of her eyebrow somehow in the curve of her voice. "I thought I might find the key that winds you up, somewhere around _here_ ," she says, pressing her fingertips sharp and sudden into the small of Isabella's back, and any sound she makes is lost under Isabella's gasped growl and the scrape of her shoes as she flinches away. Somewhere along the way she accidentally pulls on the thing she's holding onto.

There's a click, and the stones shift open with a crumbling kind of groan.

Isabella blinks the brightness away, as the outside world floods in with a cold, damp rush. The mist seems thicker down here, the sun barely making its way through, but even that hits like a spotlight — and she feels suddenly tight with the awareness of Madalena behind her, close enough that she jolts as Madalena's sleeve brushes her shoulder.

She turns to look just as Madalena finishes crossing her arms, a sigh leaving her mouth loose and disappointed.

"I thought it might be booby-trapped," Madalena says, studying the mechanism in the wall, Isabella's hand still on it. "Shame," she adds, and looks down, her lips blossoming into a nightshade smile as she meets Isabella's gaze.

Realisation washes over Isabella in a cacophony of expressions. It ends with a huff of disgust as she snatches her hand back, and storms out first.

The grass, slick and marshy with the unrelenting damp, tries to skid out under her heels but sheer fury keeps her upright, because she's been foolish and her shoulders still feel weirdly tingly and hang on —

She skids to a stop, stomach jolting as wet inertia tries to keep her moving, because none of the trees at the edge of the clearing are burnt and her horse is nowhere to be seen, which means she's on the wrong side of the bloody tower.

"Unbelievable," Isabella mutters, and glances at the sky as she steels herself to turn around and walk past Madalena again — and she presses her nails into her palms with a jolt as the sky above darkens like someone's blown out the only candle in a room.

Thunder cracks. Isabella turns so sharply her boot squeaks on the grass, her hand flying to her sword as her eyes are drawn to Madalena like every angle of the scenery is pointing towards her — Madalena, who stands no more than a few paces from the open doorway, a wind tugging at her skirts as she stretches her hands up to the clouds and grins wide and bright at the sky.

She snaps her open hands into fists, and lightning hits the ground so close that the world becomes nothing but white for an infinity; heat licks along Isabella's skin, her flesh prickling, and in that frozen moment all she can think is that maybe whoever locked up Madalena might have had a good point.

Her vision clears slowly. It takes a while for her ears to stop ringing, her hand pressed against the corner of her jaw as her heart pounds beneath her ribs, and Madalena is smoothing down her dress when Isabella finally blinks away the negative black lingering in front of her eyes. The sky has settled back to a damp, pale threat of rain.

"Sorry, I just didn't see any reason to resist the urge to do that," Madalena says, flicking her hair back over her shoulder with a hand flutter that makes the clouds shift and boil. "It's been a really long time."

Isabella drops her hand down to her bag, reminds herself there was no way in the seven realms that she was going to just leave Madalena chained up in there, and stares at her.

"It wasn't actually aimed at you," Madalena adds, glancing away as she folds her arms, one delicate hand splaying over her elbow.

"Right," Isabella says, instead of the myriad of questions that are lining up on her tongue, and takes a step forward just to prove to herself that she still can. Years of sword-fights and practice and bruises mean her muscles obey even when she wants to collapse, even when her bones feel like each one has been taken out and shaken roughly before being haphazardly shoved back in, and so she walks until the tower is behind her and the familiar curve of the clearing stretches out ahead.

Her horse is grazing at the far edge, unperturbed by the charred tree it's still loosely tied onto.

"This whole thing was a stupid idea," she tells it, and flings her bag down to start fixing the saddle, just so her hands have something to cling to while they quietly vibrate.

A puff of smoke appears between one blink and the next, and Madalena is standing a foot away. She rolls her head from side to side, chin tilted up and her eyes shut; loose contentment in every line. "I really needed that," she sighs, her voice low and satisfied.

Isabella huffs, a full-body release that starts in her shoulders and ends in her toes, shaking the tension out of her fingers. She's faintly aware that perhaps she should be more scared of the way the air crackles slightly around Madalena, but Isabella's never really learnt how to be afraid for herself; her heart only flutters when people she cares about are in danger. Threats just set her pulse hard and vital.

"I forgot how much I hate the smell of the outdoors," Madalena says, eventually.

"All I can smell is charcoal," Isabella says, fiddling with a strap. The ground is steady under her feet. She's fine; she's faced worse. Isabella glances at the semi-circle of burnt trees that stretches out either side of them. "I take it this is your doing?"

"Yeah," Madalena says, bright and pleased. "Turns out I could reach just far enough out of the window to set things on fire. It gave me something to do while keeping would-be rescuers at bay..." she says, trailing off with a glance around. She frowns, mouth falling into a pout. "Where is Gal, anyway?"

"Poetry retreat," Isabella says, without hesitation, or the lightness she's held in her voice for the last twenty times she's been asked that this month. Her horse shifts its weight as Isabella tightens the saddle with a sharp tug.

"Huh," Madalena says, clicking her tongue. She draws herself up, shoulders falling back as she smooths down her dress and links her fingers. "Well, this was fun," she declares, her smile dark and weirdly sincere. "We should do it again some time."

Isabella snaps, hands dropping to her sides as she turns sharp and furious.

"I would rather —" she starts, but all Isabella gets is a flash of teeth as Madalena grins, and vanishes.

Thunder rolls lazily in the distance.

"Shut up," Isabella tells the sky, and gets on the horse.

 

* * *

 

It takes over a week to get home, and when she gets there the only life in the house is the family of rats under the floorboards. Galavant must be enjoying himself at the retreat, writing all the songs of her brains and beauty that he promised as he brushed aside all the half-started verses and stalled stanzas and left.

It's not like she can blame him — she's the one who encouraged him to go, gently urging him out the door as she eyed the sword above it, boredom plucking at her skin. She was going to tell him the moment she got home, see if he wanted to come with her next time, but, well, he's not here, and so Isabella hangs her sword back on the wall, exactly as it was when Galavant left, and starts dusting.

(She loves this house, truly, but it's just a bit — the rats are closer than she's used to. And the walls creak during storms in a way that Valencia's castle never did; it's impossible to sleep. And cottages by the sea sound a lot less romantic when it's _winter_.)

 

* * *

 

It's a month until she sees Madalena again.

She should have expected it; this day was going so terribly, having to get up at the first bleat of the cockerel to come to the bloody farmers' market only to find that bloody _Stephanie_ had beaten her to the reduced artisan cheese, _again_ , that of course an evil ex-queen would show up just to make it worse.

It takes a few seconds for the screams to filter through, as Isabella considers whether she wants those handmade soaps because they'd look nice in the privy or just because they're marked as half price. Someone shoves past her, her hip knocking into the stall and sending fancy soaps scattering, and as Isabella turns to tut meaningfully in their direction the world expands, and crashes in.

People scatter as Madalena stalks casually down the corridor of stalls. She looks — _good_ , in that way Isabella has always been aware and pointedly not jealous of, her hair perfect and her skin flawless as she walks with her chin high and her plum-purple dress rippling behind her. The air crackles around her, but Isabella's not sure if anyone else notices.

Her sword is on the wall at the cottage. The possibly anti-magical chain link she palmed from the tower is still in her travelling bag, hidden under the bed. She has — Isabella looks down at her bag — a bundle of courgettes. She's not sure why she has them. She doesn't even like courgettes.

Isabella sets her jaw, and steps into her path anyway.

"Madalena," Isabella says, after a pause, because Madalena doesn't seem to have noticed her — her languid, deliberate consideration of the goods either side of her doesn't slow until Isabella has planted her feet and folded her arms.

Madalena stops, links her fingers together, and looks utterly unsurprised.

"Oh. You," she says, something like a smile in the corners of her mouth. It gets a little brighter as Madalena looks her over, in anticipation of an insult. "You're looking homely."

Isabella's jaw twitches. "What the hell are you doing here?"

"Shopping," Madalena says, with a hitch of her eyebrow that manages to look like a shrug. There's smoke behind her, drifting up lazily from somewhere unseen. "My useless servant apparently couldn't find a decent fig preserve if I was beating her over the head with it."

"When did you get servants?" Isabella asks, frowning, as her memories tick through the last month since she saw her; the complete lack of any mention of terrifying sorceresses or returned evil queens in the local gossip, the air always clear and any thunder heralded by a long, swelling storm. Her gaze rushes over Madalena's bare wrists and thin throat and every glitter of jewellery across her pink-knuckled hands. "What have you been _doing_?"

"Oh, you know," Madalena says, touching the side of her temple where a crown might sit. "Storming the odd castle, overthrowing the DEL and taking over that whole wretched kingdom, that kind of thing." She grins, close-lipped, her expression as blazing and secret as gilded city gates.

Isabella's only knowledge of any other great evil in the seven realms lingers like a fairytale at the back of her mind; somewhere far, far away. She doesn't ask how Madalena got here — instead, she sighs, and thinks about consequences as she glances at the sky. "So, you have a castle now?" she asks. " _Again_?"

"I was hardly going to crawl back to some godawful hovel by the sea," Madalena says, distaste curling around her cheeks. Isabella's nails bite into her palm as Madalena folds her arms, drawing herself taller. "But yes, obviously, I live in a castle. You must come visit, take a tour of my gorgeous throne room. It's on top of a very tall mountain so most of the peasants coming to me with their ridiculous problems tend to die before they get anywhere near the gates, but I'm sure your freakishly strong thighs could make it," she says, her teeth bared and bright.

"Oh, I'll come _visit_ ," Isabella sneers, stepping forward. "And before you can even think of throwing me into the dungeons I will tear down everything you've—"

"Who said anything about the dungeons? Oh, no, I've had quite enough of that," Madalena says, shaking back her hair as her grin slips wider. "I put all my prisoners in cages at the top of my tallest tower, so they have a lovely view as I leave them to rot." Madalena flattens her hand on her chest, her fingers splaying over her collarbone. "I feel like I've really grown as a torturer, you know?"

"You haven't changed at all," Isabella says, and Madalena's smile pulls tight and pleased. "You're lucky I don't bring my sword to the farmers' market — although maybe I should," she adds, quiet and bitter, as her gaze slips helplessly past Madalena to where there's a woman hastily loading a cart. Stephanie ignores them both, and tries to wedge another box into the pile.

Madalena frowns, and then looks over her shoulder to follow Isabella's gaze. "Who — oh, I don't care," she says, and flicks her hand like she's shaking off water as she turns back around. Stephanie's cart bursts into flames.

"I don't _share_ ," Madalena says, crossing her arms again. "Do I have your full attention now?"

Heat flares across her cheeks, despite the fire being yards away. Isabella looks from it to Madalena and back again, and digs the tip of her tongue against the edge of her teeth. "I'm leaving," Isabella says, before she does something ridiculous like throw a courgette at Madalena, and turns on her heel.

She gets one full stride away before her boots jam into the ground, the mud turning very thin and then very solid all at once, and she's stuck.

"I wasn't done," Madalena says, behind her. The line of her shoulders prickle with memory, tense and touch-starved, but she feels the danger in her spine and her breath is caught in her lungs, uselessly expanding.

"It's funny," Madalena starts, her footsteps slow and solid as she wanders closer. "Seeing you here makes me realise there may be a solution for the little problem I've been having after all," she says, still somewhere behind her. Isabella's skin tingles with the ghost of almost-pressure, but it could just be the heat from the smouldering cart.

She grimaces, and tries to yank her feet free with a jerk of her whole body — and when that fails she sighs, folds her arms, and glances over her shoulder to find Madalena a foot away and grinning.

"What do you want, Madalena?" she asks, her mouth tight.

"Same thing any woman wants," Madalena says, slinking close so suddenly that Isabella recoils, a flutter in her stomach. Madalena's grin tilts sharp as she stalks past. "A little bit of appreciation. Turns out being awful to everyone while they meekly grovel can get boring after several weeks. Who knew, right? I need someone to look horrified while I'm being horrible," Madalena says, a few paces ahead, and she turns with a flurry of skirts to look Isabella over with a quick flit of a glance. "You'll do."

"You're kidding," Isabella says, flatly.

"No. Are you in or what?"

"Absolutely not!" she exclaims, her fists clenching as her arms drop down; the fight is surging in her veins but she can't move below her knees — the desire to sink her blunt fingernails into Madalena's flesh can only burn through her, coiling in her throat. Madalena looks distractedly to the side, her lips skewing into a pout. "It's one thing to help you when you truly need it, but I will not partake in your — subjugation!"

"Don't be dumb," Madalena says, stepping forward. "I've somehow ended up with the only kingdom where the only backbone is in the gross fish they keep trying to serve me as a delicacy, and you clearly need someone _interesting_ to hate," she says, her eyes flicking over Isabella's shoulder.

It cools her, somehow. Isabella shifts; she can wiggle her toes, even if her boots are moulded to the ground. "I think we both know I'm never going to say yes," she says, eyes narrowed.

Madalena looks her over again, and sighs. "Fine," she says, eventually, and flutters her fingers. The mud softens, going thick and sticky and movable. "Seeing how this was the most fun I've had all week, I suppose I'll let you live," she adds, and the crude slant of her smile lands oddly in Isabella's stomach.

She gasps, instead of yelling anything back, because her feet have suddenly started sinking; and when she steadies herself and looks up to yell about that there's a faint pop and a puff of smoke, just the memory of bright teeth lingering like a Cheshire cat smile.

The mud clings to her boots in gloopy lumps as Isabella staggers out of the quagmire, feeling wrong-footed in too many ways.

 

* * *

 

The second time Madalena shows up at the farmers' market, Isabella has her sword-belt slung around her hips and short, shining vambraces on her forearms.

Summer has started creeping in through the cracks of spring, the sun pushing down heat instead of chasing away the cold — and after two weeks of being constantly prepared for battle every time she's left the cottage, today was the first day she considered admitting that Madalena wasn't coming back and just leaving it all at home. It feels like all the heat of her body is trying to escape via her wrists and gets trapped instead, leaving her feeling itchy and sticky and furious for no reason.

She's been there for an hour when the usual low buzz of the market ticks higher, and panicked, shouts cutting through the stalls as Isabella's heart suddenly thrums with a quick-step of delight.

"Move!" Madalena demands, somewhere in the crowd, and the people between them fall away like an ocean parting as Isabella turns to look, the thrill of danger in her fingertips.

"There you are," Madalena says, her dress the colour of a storm-swollen sea, smiling tight-lipped and crooked as she looks Isabella over — her eyes catch on the armour, briefly, and the corner of her mouth hitches. "I thought you should know that I've kidnapped your parents."

Isabella's stomach jerks. "What?"

"Oh, yes, they've been starving in my castle for almost a week now, I'm honestly impressed they're still hanging on. Still, you might save them, if you hurry."

"I can't believe —!" Isabella starts, her hand gripping the hilt of her sword, but then she frowns, and stops. "Hang on, sorry, how long have you had them?"

Madalena rocks back on her heel, her brows drawing together. "Like... five days?" she says, blinking.

"Huh," Isabella says, looking off to the side, where a man is trying to crawl under a stall.

"You seem remarkably calm about this," Madalena says, her mouth small.

"Yeah," Isabella says, watching his legs wiggle. "I visited my parents two days ago. In Valencia. They seemed fine to me."

"Oh," Madalena says, her shoulders dropping down like the swing of an axe. She sighs, rough and annoyed. "Oh, fine, so I don't have them. I guess I just assumed no one actually went to see their parents regularly," she says, frowning at nothing on the ground.

A breath, and then she shakes it off and looks up, smiling bright and vicious. "Not to worry. Plan B will have to do," Madalena says, and throws up her hands with a shock of light.

Isabella thinks of thunderstorms as she steps sharply back — and then blinks, as a wave of warmth rolls over and past her like a sea summer breeze. Her skirts rustle lazily around her ankles.

"What," Madalena says. She looks down at her hands, palms pale and flat and turned upwards, and then jerks them forward again like she's trying to burst the air between them.

The same light cracks across the market, the same soft breeze whispers across Isabella's hair, and Madalena is wide-eyed and open-mouthed and flushed red as absolutely nothing at all happens.

"Why is nothing going right for me today," she says, flat and horrified, staring down at her hands again.

"Sorry, was that supposed to do something?" Isabella says, delight curling irresistibly around her tongue. She steps forward, her covered wrist knocking the pommel of her sword with a sharp, clear note.

"What did you do?" Madalena asks, a maelstrom in the angle of her mouth as she looks up.

Isabella grins. "Nothing," she says, and holds the joy of it for a beat before it bursts out of her. "Well, I might have taken one of the chain links from your tower, and had the local blacksmith take a look at it. Turns out it was just iron. Although it does seem to glow when orcs are near," Isabella adds, frowning at her wrists.

"You turned that chain into _armour_?" Madalena clarifies, her gaze knife-sharp as it flicks over her. "That's cheating!"

"I think it makes us even," Isabella says, with a hitch of her eyebrow, boldness flushing across her skin. She steps forward. "I set you free, and now you can't hurt me."

" _Really_ ," Madalena says, her swagger forward like an off-beat reflection in a hall of mirrors, and Isabella's hands tingle with the closeness, the urge to reach across the scant paces between them and wrap her hands around her throat.

A cloud passes over the sun, like a touch of cold water to her neck, and Isabella holds herself steady; she watches the shutters of expression ripple across Madalena's face, her eyes dark and considering as she looks around, and then — "It's funny, you always seem to be alone these days. Where _is_ Gal?"

Isabella presses her lips together. She knows what this is, the growl of a predator backed into a corner — she won't be beaten by it.

"If you must know, we're in the middle of a temporary trial separation," Isabella says, lifting her chin.

Madalena raises her eyebrows. "Isn't that what you were already doing?" she asks.

Isabella stares at her for a moment, then falters. "Well, yes," she says, glancing to the side. "But this time the monks did a song about it."

"Ugh," Madalena says, and folds her arms.

Silence hangs for a long moment. The market is almost empty, after everyone scattered at the first sight of Madalena; a goat bleats somewhere out of sight, and Isabella has the oddest urge to spill anything into the void between them, anything to shatter the weight like a black hole that's tingling across her skin.

Madalena's voice bursts out like it's been snatched up by the vacuum: "Look, I wouldn't normally do this but it turns out I have nothing better to do today, so — d'you want to get a drink? As a one-time cessation of hostilities so I can hear all about how your relationship fell horribly apart, obviously," she says, quickly.

Isabella blinks, opens her mouth to say no as loudly as possible, and finds her tongue saying, "Yeah, okay."

"Great," Madalena says, faint and surprised. She gestures behind her, vaguely. "I saw this really great-looking wine bar a couple of streets away. It's barely singed."

"Sure, lead the way," Isabella says, feeling off-balance and light-headed like the fight has suddenly drained out of her, leaving nothing behind that can hold her together.

The vambraces are skin-warm around her wrists, solid and reassuring, as Madalena picks up her skirts and turns away.

 

* * *

 

("How am I supposed to rule the masses mercilessly if no one's even afraid of me?" Madalena says, two drinks in and her gaze perfectly steady. They're barely tipsy, but something about drinking in the mid-afternoon in a dimly-lit bar makes secrets feel more like good wine, rolling easily across the tongue.

Isabella purses her lips, glancing at the beams above them. "You could easily be the most feared woman in the seven realms," she says.

"You really think so?" Madalena asks, and she sounds so soft and pleased that Isabella looks down just to check it's still Madalena across from her.

"I have absolute faith in you," Isabella says, feeling honest with it, and takes another drink before she has to consider what that means.)

She leaves not long after that, walking home on steady feet as the sky is still bright with early-evening; the sun is just flirting with the horizon, almost touching.

 

* * *

 

"So," Isabella says, sitting down at her kitchen table. "What have you been up to?"

Sid winces. "That was a bit clunky."

"I know, I've been meaning to get the legs fixed," Isabella says, wobbling the table again. "But really, it's been weeks. Tell me everything I've missed."

"Well," Sid starts, leaning forward. "Richard's been trying to convince me to dragon-sit for them, as Tad Cooper's off his sheep again and he and Roberta _really_ need a night off."

"Aww?" Isabella says, frowning slightly.

"And I've been spending quite a bit of time with Steve the Jester — did you know he used to collect figurines too? We have so much in common! And I'm not sure what Gareth's been up to but I'm pretty sure he's happy, henchmanning again or something. Last time I saw him I was with, um," Sid says, and clicks his teeth together as he looks down at his hands.

Isabella sighs. "You can talk about him, Sid, it's okay," she says, curling her hands together. She looks for the steel inside her and finds something warm and grey instead, like a fireplace left to cool. "How is Galavant?"

"You know, good. Not too good, obviously, you wouldn't want to hear that but he's not doing terribly, either. I met him at the Enchanted Forest the other day, actually. He seems to have, um," Sid says, and bites his lip.

"What?" Isabella asks, frowning softly. Sid glances out the window, and her expression hardens. "Finish your sentences, Sid!"

"I'm just saying he seems to have forgiven the Queen for briefly holding him hostage, that's all! I'm almost definitely positive nothing's happening there."

"Oh," Isabella says, pulling back. "The Queen," she says.

"It's probably nothing?" Sid tries, wincing as he scratches at the table with a fingernail. "We left at the same time anyway, and I was in the middle of a quest so I couldn't really hang around..."

Isabella pounces forward. "Yes. Adventuring. Tell me everything about that."

Sid does. It all sounds very exciting.

"You should come with me next time!" Sid says, sitting back down. "I miss hanging out with you."

"Me too," Isabella says, her smile slipping wide and easy as she reaches across the table to squeeze his hand. She doesn't look at the blank stretch of wall where two swords used to hang. Hers now lives by the door, in the umbrella stand. "I've been thinking about that a lot, actually. All I want to do is help people, but the whole damsels in distress thing didn't really go to plan and —"

"Oh, you never told me how that went! Did you free many princesses?"

Isabella looks at the ceiling. "Some," she says, after a moment.

"That's great! You made a difference, right?"

"Yep," Isabella says, tightly.

"Then you're off to a great start! Just do what you think is right and you'll figure it out," Sid says, his expression so luminous that Isabella can't help but let it sink warm and solid into her chest, chasing out the shadows that linger around her lungs and sometimes lock iron-tight.

Sid grins back, and then blinks, and draws in a breath that makes Isabella's heart thud. "So, speaking of adventuring," he starts, looking at her wrist. "And, sorry to bring him up again, but Galavant saw Madalena the other day."

"Oh God, where?"

"The farmers' market. Apparently she just turned around and left when she saw him. I guess he's finally got his fearsome reputation back!" Sid says, and then frowns slightly, looking off to the side. "Or maybe she heard that song he wrote about her. It was pretty cutting."

"Yes, that must be it," Isabella says, quietly.

Sid taps the table with his fingertips. "So... have I mentioned everyone?"

"Yeah, I think we're done with the recap. I'll make us another pot of tea," Isabella says, and smiles.

 

* * *

 

She takes the longer route to the market, the next week. It means her boots are caked in mud when she gets there and her skin is unpleasantly flushed (her wrists are fine — she swapped the vambraces for bracelets, the same metal but looser), and most of all it means she gets to sneak up on Madalena, for once, because she approaches the market from the opposite direction than usual.

Madalena is pacing behind a thicket that shields her from the bustle of the stalls. The smell of something roasting lingers in the air, snatches of it as the wind curls and changes, and Isabella walks slow and silently as the path curves around the corner and dumps her inevitably in Madalena's way.

She was ready for this, a moment ago — but her cheeks flush like a memory of wine, a lingering awkwardness from an intimacy that never quite happened, and her sword rings with an accusing note as she draws it from its scabbard. Isabella lifts her chin, steadies herself, and says, carefully, "Hey."

Madalena turns in a swirl of skirts, her hands a pale spider of tension in front of her. "Oh," she says, blinking twice, and then gives the smallest shake of her head and draws herself up, tall and regal.

"Hi," Madalena throws back, dismissing the blade pointed towards her in a single snake-roll of her neck, looking only at Isabella.

Isabella's eyes dart to the side. A bone-deep sense of politeness that's never bothered with Madalena suddenly stirs, and tries to line up _how are you_ on her tongue. She bites it back. "Are you waiting for something?" she tries.

"No," Madalena says, then corrects it with a rabbit-twitch of her mouth. "Yes," she says, and holds out her hand, palm up. "You're coming with me."

"Absolutely not!" Isabella says, frowning, her heartbeat strong and steady and oddly present. Her sword is starting to feel heavy, half-raised and angled forwards. "Where?" she asks, after a pause.

"To the _tavern_ ," Madalena sighs, her hand still stretched out. "I have something to ask you and I'm not doing it here."

Isabella looks at her, as Madalena sets her jaw hard and doesn't shift, her mouth the only uncertain line of her body, and the way the sunlight curves around Madalena's neck somehow catches in her lungs.

She lets her sword drop, the tip hitting the ground and sending the metal bouncing in her hand. "Oh, fine. This is all post-canon anyway, it's not like any of it matters."

"That's the spirit," Madalena says, her expression clearing likes clouds after a storm. She pulls her hand back and links her fingers together. "Come on, then," she says, with a flash of a full-lipped smile, and sweeps past the thicket and towards the town without glancing back.

Everything about this feels inevitable, and immovable. Isabella sighs, shoves her blade back into its sheath, and follows.

The tavern is the same one they went to weeks ago; there are nineteen types of wine and a choice of cholera with that. Madalena orders the same for both of them, and only has to raise one flame-covered hand to free up the nice table by the window.

"Oh good, they remembered," Madalena says, as the family flees, and sits down. "Sit," she says, reaching across to pat the other side of the table, when Isabella stays standing.

She's uncomfortably aware of Madalena watching her as she unclips her belt and leans her sword against the wall, smoothing down her dress before she kicks out the stool and perches on the edge of it. Madalena's smile hitches wider when she's settled, and looks across at her.

"So," Isabella starts, tapping a fingernail on the side of her goblet. "You had something to ask me?"

"It's... a minor problem, I've been having," she says, shifting, something uncomfortable hooking at her mouth. "It turns out you don't have much of a kingdom to rule over if you kill everyone who annoys you."

Isabella waits. "And?" she prompts.

Madalena looks away, studying the ceiling and the bar and the shoulders of whoever is behind Isabella. "And all these mindless petitions are getting in my way of studying to be the most terrifying force in the seven realms," she says, her eyes resting for a beat on something near the door.

"Right," Isabella says, slowly, and Madalena's gaze stops flitting around the tavern and finally lands on her.

She tilts her chin, considering Isabella's hands before she looks up and catches her eye. "And, let's be honest, it is your fault they're in this sorry situation," Madalena says, sitting forward, her voice honey-filled and leading.

"What?" Isabella asks, her spine straightening. " _How?_ "

"You're the one who got me out of that wretched tower. Who knows if I would have ever made it out by myself?" Madalena says, eyes wide and her chin lowered, secrets darkening the corners of her lips. "But, thanks to you, a kingdom got a new ruler and now I'm stuck with it, so pull your weight and come help me deal with them all," she finishes, her voice slipping fast like a narrowing river in the dark.

Isabella blinks. "Wait, what," she says, flatly.

Madalena does something with her mouth that makes her cheekbones sharper. "Ruling alone is getting on my nerves and I need someone who knows what they're doing," she states. Her gaze flicks over Isabella like deja vu. "You'll do."

This is a trick. It must be. Her heart feels strangely heavy in her chest.

"Why on earth would I help you?" Isabella asks, holding tight onto her goblet.

Madalena shrugs. "You'd get to be Queen without all that waiting around for your parents to die," she says.

"That's the last thing I want!" Isabella says, over-loud and horrified, and pulls her wine closer. Madalena leans forward, resting her elbows on the table.

"So. What do you want?" she asks.

Isabella thinks of sitting at her kitchen table with Sid, the sun-warm sense of purpose behind her ribs.

"To help people," she says, sitting taller.

Madalena runs her tongue along the edge of her teeth. "Well, I know a whole kingdom of indentured peasants that need your help. Come rule over them with me."

Isabella stares at her, then takes a sip of her wine. It slips easily, dry and dark and fruity, across her mouth. "But," she starts, and pauses to roll tannins across her tongue. "Why me?"

"I've tried on every other main character for size, why not you?" Madalena says, half-shrugging and casual.

"You've always hated me," Isabella points out.

"I don't like it when people try to take my things," Madalena snaps back, but she brightens immediately. "But, that's all in the past, and I thought we could move forward, in the spirit of... togetherness," she says, laying her hand delicately on the table between them, and Isabella feels suddenly, strangely aware of her body, prickling warmth in her neck and her spine and her wrists like she's been running in armour.

"I'm not going to... keep your kingdom running for you while you overthrow every other realm," she says. There's cold clarity in her stomach and enough heat in her fingertips that her wine goblet feels cool against them — her body is a storm in waiting, confused and boiling.

"Oh, no," Madalena agrees. "I'm going to let Richard do all the hard work in fulfilling the prophecy and then just kill him when he's done and take over."

"He has a dragon," Isabella says, and taps her free hand on the table, not far from Madalena's. "And you can't kill him!"

"Why not? I considered _so many_ ways I could do it while we were married, but I was under the mistaken assumption that a queen needs a king," she says, smiling thin-lipped and wicked, and the low look she shoots across the table hit like lightning, forking infinitely through Isabella until she feels flayed-open and impossibly warm. "I thought I'd try having a queen by my side."

"Do you mean—," Isabella starts, and then, "I won't—" and then, "Do you really—?"

"Go on," Madalena cajoles. "Come be modern with me." Her fingers slide over Isabella's, the storm glittering into fireworks under her skin.

 _This is a trap_ , says one part of her, as another says _yes absolutely yes please_.

"I need to, um," Isabella says, standing up sharply, and then she flees to the restroom.

She doesn't know what to do when she gets there, shoving past the rickety door and smacking her hands down either side of the sink. She's not really used to running away from her problems. Tactical retreat, maybe, but never straight-up bolting.

"What is your problem?" Madalena asks, her voice clipped and level despite the slam of the door against the wall. Isabella spins, pressing herself against the counter as Madalena crowds close, the low murmur of the tavern cutting off as the door swings shut behind her.

"I don't understand what you want," Isabella says, honest. Her breath is caught in her throat; the air tastes like Madalena's perfume, like wine, like... a pub bathroom, but mostly the other two.

"I thought I laid it out pretty clearly," Madalena says, fond annoyance etching itself around her mouth. "I want you, by my side or under me or... occasionally on top, if you're in the mood for that," she says, her grin tipping sly.

"Oh," Isabella says, getting it. "Right. So you weren't just flirting because that's what you do."

"Not exclusively, no," she says, and presses her lips together. Isabella stares at the door. "Look, I'm really not used to having to work this hard to get someone to say yes," Madalena adds, crossing her arms.

"No, I imagine not," Isabella says quietly, and thinks of every way she wants to sink her fingers into Madalena's flesh. She wants to make her scream, unbuckled helms and fists at each other's throats. She wants to see if all that perfect skin is as cold and smooth as it looks, and revel in all the ways that it won't be.

Yes, she wants. Of course she does.

"Are you done?" Madalena asks, quiet and close. Almost touching.

"Yes," Isabella says faintly, and trails her fingertips up Madalena's arms, the fabric silky and skin-warm. She looks up, catching on Madalena's parted lips for a breath before meeting her eye. "I think this could work."

Madalena's hand curls around her waist, and there's not enough room between them to pull her closer so she traps her neatly against the sink, her thigh sliding between Isabella's in an echo of a long-ago fight.

"Finally," Madalena whispers, and kisses her; a hard press of her mouth that thrills incandescent through the most unexpected places, the curve of her knee and the span of her ribs — until Madalena pulls back, her cheeks pleasingly flushed. "Sorry, this is a bit odd, the people I kiss are usually at least the same height as me," she says, frowning slightly.

"Don't worry, everyone I kiss is taller than me," Isabella says, and pulls her down to kiss her properly.

It works better, that time.

There's violence in the way Madalena kisses, teeth hidden under the relentless softness of her tongue, and it's the kind that Isabella finds herself falling into like a challenge, irresistible. She winds her hand around Madalena's neck and angles herself open, heat flooding through her as Madalena kisses like a thunderstorm, static prickling across her skin — and Isabella's thoughts click into clarity. She pulls away an inch, Madalena's breath warm and fast against her lips. "Did you really mean it, us ruling together?"

"If one more serf asks me where his cow is I'm going to set the entire kingdom on fire. Yes, I meant it," she murmurs.

"How do I know this isn't some elaborate plot?"

"You don't," Madalena says, chasing forward as Isabella pulls back. She looks up, her eyes almost black, and heat sings all the way down Isabella's spine as Madalena's hand slides up it. "But I know how you could find out," Madalena says, and kisses her as a soundly as a promise.


End file.
